Gordon Lightfoot Forums - LIVE albums

http://www.thestar.com/Entertainment/article/556044

LIVE ALBUMS

`Made in Toronto' means listen up

R.E.M.'s new release reaffirms allure of local on-stage recordings

Dec 20, 2008 04:30 AM

John Sakamoto
Toronto Star

By any rational measure, the live album should be long dead by now. Little more than a stopgap even back when the CD was the music buyer's medium of choice, it should by now possess all the viability of a Paris Hilton film festival.

Instead, the dubious form has managed to elude the last rites by mutating into "instant" download websites or DVDs, by populating communal online services or by aspiring to permanence by presenting itself as a historically significant document.

Such is the case with the new reissue of R.E.M.'s classic debut album, Murmur, which has been expanded to include an exhilarating July 1983 performance at long-defunct Toronto punk hangout Larry's Hideaway. The resurrected recording gleefully peels away the gauziness of the band's early studio work and conveys instead the sound of a fierce, bristling live unit.

That an act of R.E.M.'s stature has been memorialized in a 25-year-old show at a grotty local venue was enough to inspire a burst of municipal patriotism, and set us off on an selective survey of other live-in-Toronto albums:

The Plastic Ono Band: Live Peace in Toronto, 1969

Arguably the most illustrious representative of the bunch, this amiably shambolic performance by John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton et al is surprisingly hard to come by these days, at least in physical form. It has, however, found a new life on iTunes, where it's available as a digital download for a mere eight bucks.

Neil Young:

Live At Massey Hall 1971

Blue Rodeo: Blue Road

Matthew Good:

Live At Massey Hall

Gordon Lightfoot:

Sunday Concert

The Quintet:

Jazz at Massey Hall

On the trio of recent additions – Young's 1971 solo show was finally released last year, with Blue Rodeo's and Good's contributions coming earlier this year – Massey Hall's warmth is palpable, especially on Blue Rodeo's countrified take on the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody," but equally so on Good's intense "Hello Time Bomb."

Fact is, if a moratorium were declared on all future live recordings at the venue, it would still take its place in history as the site of Gordon Lightfoot's Sunday Concert and the so-called "greatest jazz concert ever," the May 1953 show by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charlie Mingus and Max Roach. (Hardcore Bob Dylan fans, meanwhile, stubbornly continue to hope for a legitimate release of his "born again" April 1980 stand.)

The Last Pogo (DVD)

Colin Brunton's labour of love documents a bona fide piece of Toronto musical history: the notorious Dec. 1, 1978, performance at the Horseshoe Tavern, encapsulating a vibrant punk scene that included The Scenics, The Viletones, The Ugly, and Teenage Head. The night crashed to a premature conclusion after police and firefighters were called in to escort rowdy patrons from the overstuffed club. The 26-minute film ends with pure sound, or what the liner notes memorably describe as "the riotous symphony of two hundred tables and chairs being splintered for punk posterity."

Ryan Adams, Smashing Pumpkins and My Morning Jacket: THE LIVE ARCHIVE

Speaking of the Horseshoe, it's the location of a memorable Adams show from September 2000, preserved for posterity as part of the Live Archive. The stunningly expansive site (archive.org/details/etree) features downloadable music from "trade-friendly" artists, generally those who allow taping and trading of their performances for "non-commercial use." The Adams show is a pristine soundboard recording, while many others are taped by someone in the audience. Quality varies but is generally surprisingly good, and if it's not, the description of the show will tell you so upfront. Oh, and "non-commercial" means it's all free. Among other notable local shows found here are the Smashing Pumpkins' two dates at Massey Hall last month; Death Cab for Cutie's 2006 stop at the Ricoh Coliseum; and My Morning Jacket at the Opera House in 2004. Just type "Toronto" into the search engine for much more.

Rush and The Grateful Dead: Wolfgang's Vault

At concerts.wolfgangsvault.com, you can hear Rush blow the roof off the glorious barn that was Maple Leaf Gardens, in 1984, or time-travel back even further to relive the Grateful Dead playing the O'Keefe (now Sony) Centre on Aug. 4, 1967. The site offers a couple of thousand shows that can be streamed free and a couple of hundred that can be downloaded for about 10 bucks or less.

The Who: NORTH AMERICAN CD: TORONTO

They may be ancient, but the venerable British band was among the first to make available recordings of every show on a given tour, including a Dec. 4, 2006, stop at the Air Canada Centre (themusic.com/detail.cfm?id=9000392). Packaged in rough cardboard to reinforce the bootleg sensibility – there's no smoothing over of bum notes in post-production – the double-CD sets can now be had for $15. Acts from Pearl Jam and Ween to Genesis, Duran Duran and The Swell Season (the band from the movie Once) have all dabbled in the same model. Which means there's probably some life left in the live album after all.